


Aftermath

by Margaery



Category: Tennis RPF
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Break Up, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-28
Updated: 2014-06-28
Packaged: 2018-02-06 15:32:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1863045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Margaery/pseuds/Margaery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being abruptly dumped hurts even more when it's done on the instructions of Boris fucking Becker.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aftermath

**Author's Note:**

> [Kink meme prompt](http://tenniskinkmeme.livejournal.com/639.html?thread=12415#t12415): Boris and Amelie urge (force) them to give up everything they've had together and there are chaotic, far-reaching consequences.
> 
> [I've kept it to only Boris, as I couldn't work in Amelie. Hope you enjoy!]

“You think that _I’m_ the reason you haven’t won a Slam since Australia?” Andy asks, hearing the incredulousness in his voice overcome even his natural monotone.

Novak shrugs. He looks miserable. Andy wants to touch him, wants to poke him in the side and make him laugh, or throw a gruff arm around his shoulders and pull him close. But he’s not allowed to do that. Not anymore. Apparently.

“Look,” Andy says, leaning back against the sink and crossing his arms, “if Becker told you that the reason you haven’t won a Slam recently is because you’re fucking me, he’s full of shite.”

“He didn’t,” Novak starts, drearily, then stops. “He thinks I need to focus on tennis. And he thinks it’s hard to be cutthroat enough when you’re … sleeping with your main competitor.”

“Your main competitor is Rafa,” Andy says, bluntly. He’s not kidding himself. Especially when he’s still rehabbing after his back surgery. “And you beat him in the Asian swing and at the Tour Finals. You’ll be fine.”

Novak looks down at his hands. They’re clenched on his keys, like he feels he needs to be able to run for it at any moment. “I know. But.” He looks up again. “I need this, Andy. I need Australia.”

“And breaking up with me and making yourself miserable is really going to help you win Australia,” Andy says, lacing his tone with scepticism.

“Boris thinks tennis…”

“What does Marian think? _Marian_ is the one who knows you. _Marian_ is the one who helped you to all your Slams. Not a celebrity coach who’s out to make a splash.”

“Andy,” Novak says, and his voice is intense. “ _You_ hired Lendl. You hired him, and you won the Olympics and two Slams, right away.” He makes a little cut-off gesture with his hand. “I feel like my game is stagnating. Like it’s lost just a step, here and there. I need to fix it.”

“Yeah,” Andy says, sarcastically, “your game really looked like it lost a step, in Shanghai and Beijing and Paris and London. Oh wait, you won all those.”

Novak shakes his head. “I need this,” he says, and the finality in his voice makes Andy’s stomach turn. “Those weren’t Slams. Rafa was tired. _You_ were about to have back surgery. Federer’s playing dead – I think he comes back strong next year. I have to be ready.”

“And listening to Boris Fucking Becker tell you to dump me is the way you get ready.”

“I need this,” Novak says again.

Andy thinks about kissing him, about just stepping forward and gathering him up, prying the keys out of his hand and showing him that this is ridiculous. They’re not grand romantic lovers, but they belong together; they always have, and they always will. This is bullshit. This is bull-fucking-shite.

But they’ve also never really done big soppy gestures, and pleading for Novak to stay would take words that just aren’t in Andy’s vocabulary. 

“Okay,” he says, biting off the word. “Fine, then. You want to go, fucking go.”

He turns away so Novak can’t see the hurt in his face, though he knows that Novak knows him well enough to see it in his shoulders, the set lines of his back. 

“I’m sorry,” Novak says, quietly, and leaves.

~

Neither of them wins Australia.

Andy’s pretty satisfied just to have reached the quarterfinals, to be truthful – well, not _satisfied_ , exactly. You don’t get to be a Slam winner if you’re satisfied with reaching quarterfinals. But given that he was returning from back surgery, quarterfinals is a good result. Losing to Federer isn’t shameful. And he can build on it.

Novak’s loss to Stan, on the other hand…

The hurt part of him wants to call Novak and say, “Told you so.” The stupidly pining part of him wants to call and say, “Good job breaking it, fuckface, come over for dinner and a blowjob.” 

But he knows calling would be a mistake. 

Instead, it’s Novak who eventually calls him, and he doesn’t sound upset. He sounds… disbelieving? Stunned? Surely Stan’s victory wasn’t that astounding. He’d pushed Novak twice last year.

“Andy,” Novak says, his voice hushed.

“That’s me,” Andy says. He concentrates on keeping his voice steady. They haven’t talked – not really talked – since Novak broke up with him in December. (And merry Christmas to you too.) The treasonous part of Andy’s brain wants to clutch the phone to him and smile idiotically like a lovestruck teenager. Which is appalling, and the thought sobers him up a little bit.

“Andy,” Novak says again. 

“If you called me just to say my name over and over…” Andy says, trying to keep the bite out of his voice.

“I’m going to be a dad,” Novak says, in a rush.

Andy swallows. 

After far too long, he forces out, “Congratulations.” It sounds hoarse, but it’s the best he can do. “Tell Jelena congratulations from me.”

“I wanted you to know,” Novak says. “We’re not telling people yet, but I wanted you to know.”

Andy shifts, folding his legs underneath him on the bed and pressing his free hand against his forehead. He feels a headache coming on. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone.”

“That’s not what I,” Novak says.

“I hope you and your family will be very happy,” Andy says, because he’s a good person, his mother raised him to be a _good person_ , and he does like Jelena, and Novak will be a fucking amazing dad.

Novak doesn’t say anything.

He also doesn’t hang up, though. Andy closes his eyes and listens to him breathe, feeling like a prize numbskull but unable to end the call. Seeing him in the locker room isn’t the same as feeling his breath under your fingers, under your mouth; seeing him on court isn’t the same as feeling his laughter against your chest and touching the smile lines on his cheeks. He hasn’t had a moment alone with Novak since that abrupt shattering of their easy life together, and it hasn’t got easier yet.

“I’m sorry,” Novak finally says.

Andy lets out his breath, slowly, carefully. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for,” he says, even though it’s a lie. “You’re having a baby. It’s happy news. I hope it keeps you up nights and makes you easier to beat.” The playfulness sounds forced, but it’s the best he can do.

Novak’s laugh also sounds forced. They’re trying. Fuck, but they’re trying. “Yeah.”

“I have to go,” Andy says, abruptly, and hangs up.

~

It’s not enough that his boyfriend dumps him at Christmas. His coach dumps him three months later.

He deals with the press. He deals with the well-wishers. He’s good at dealing with things, after all these years in the limelight. He runs through the days on autopilot, and does a pretty damn good job.

He won’t let himself think about what it might be like to have somebody who understood, somebody who had his back, somebody who knew how to make him laugh and was able to reassure him that it wouldn’t be the end of the world, that he’d won tennis matches before Lendl and would be able to after Lendl.

It’s not even Lendl, really. It’s … everything at once, he guesses. Combine that with back surgery – no matter how much the surgeons reassure, there’s always the dark irrational worry that things won’t ever work quite as well again, that his days of threatening at Slams are over – and he guesses he’s in a vulnerable state. Maybe he should go back to that sports psychologist. But she’d ask if he’d had any personal problems lately, and, well, he’d have to lie, because he’s pretty fucking sure that Novak breaking up with him means that he wouldn’t want to be outed to the entire media when he’s just proposed to his girlfriend and knocked her up. 

He doesn’t look too closely at the thought that even if he could guarantee the psychologist wouldn’t talk to the media, he – Andy – doesn’t want to unpack the breakup. It’s too sore. It came out of nowhere, and for a stupid reason. It hurts.

It’s easier to push it down, and just keep going.

~

Novak calls him. Drunk. 

“Go to sleep,” Andy says. “You’ll feel better in the morning.”

Novak laughs, the sound just a bit too loose. “No, I won’t.”

“Well, no, you won’t,” Andy tells him. “You’ll feel like somebody ran you over with a train. Seriously, man, getting drunk is pretty stupid.”

“I’m a pretty stupid guy,” Novak says.

Andy sighs, and rolls over onto his front, resting his forehead in the pillows. “Yeah, well. There’s nothing you can do about that tonight. Go to sleep.”

“I can’t sleep.”

Sometimes Novak gets insomnia. He used to burrow up against Andy, and Andy would sleepily sling an arm around him, pulling him close. The physical contact soothed him, somehow, and he’d drift to sleep eventually against Andy’s sternum, his breath tickling Andy’s skin. 

“Well, I can’t help you with that,” Andy says, sounding abrupt even to himself. “Go get in bed with your fiancée.”

Novak makes a small impatient sound, as if Andy’s not getting it, as if Andy’s an idiot, when Andy is clearly not the idiot here. “She’s not you.”

“Excellent,” Andy says. “You’ve figured that out. Very clever.”

Novak makes a small wrecked sound, and for all that Andy’s currently steeled himself to be strong, something in him aches at it.

“I miss you,” Novak says, bare and raw.

_I figured that out_ , Andy thinks, but he has no room to talk, not when he’s still sleeping on the right side of the bed, because the left has always been Novak’s. Not when he still carries the little elephant Novak gave him once, tucked into a side pocket of his racquet bag. Not when Novak is still the first number on his speed dial.

“Yeah,” he says, instead. “But you broke up with me. You’ll get over missing me.”

Novak laughs, the sound nothing like his usual laugh. “I won’t get over loving you.”

“No,” Andy says. He’s too tired for this. His bed is too empty, his blankets too cold. “You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to call me and say shit like that.”

“You love me too,” Novak says, with the absolute assurance of the solidly inebriated.

Something in Andy snaps. “Of course I fucking love you. Is that what you want to hear? We were together for _years_. And you broke up with me because your fucking coach decided you’d play better tennis if you weren’t fucking a competitor. Well, congratu-fucking-lations, that worked out great. Now fucking _Wawrinka_ ’s a fucking Grand Slam champion, and you haven’t won one in over a year. And you’re miserable. Good job.”

“That’s a lot of fucking,” Novak says, only somewhat lucidly.

“Fuck you,” Andy says. “You’re so drunk you won’t even remember this in the morning. But I’m stone-cold sober, and I’m saying that of course I love you, I probably always will, because I’m stupid and the fact that you broke my heart doesn’t appear to have made me hate you. Yet.” He pauses, breathes. “You can’t call me again. Not like this. It’s not fair.”

Novak’s quiet for a long minute. Andy begins to wonder if he’s passed out on the floor of some bathroom. Maybe he should call Troicki or someone to check on him. Or Jelena, though she’s the last person he wants to talk to. 

“Don’t hate me,” Novak says, finally. “I love you.”

Andy’s too tired for this. “Go to hell,” he says, and hangs up.

Novak tries to call back ten minutes later. Andy blocks his number.

~

The funny thing is, being a bit broken inside doesn’t seem to be affecting his tennis too badly. Semis at Roland Garros? He’ll take that any day. Losing 3/2/1 to Rafa is a bit predictable, and doesn’t bother him that much (except, like in Australia, to the extent that it always bothers him, because he’s a top tennis player and wants to win). If he made the semifinals in Roland Garros, when clay is his least favourite surface, that’s a great sign for Wimbledon.

“He needs you,” Jelena says, sweet clear blunt sledgehammer.

She’d been waiting outside the locker room after his match, and he couldn’t exactly blow her off, not with so many media around. (Harman, get a life.)

Andy takes a bite of his sandwich, giving him a moment to get himself under control. “Tell him,” he says, after he swallows, “not to send you to do his dirty work. Please.”

“It’s not dirty work,” Jelena says, calmly. “And he didn’t send me. He doesn’t know I’m here.”

He sighs. “Look. You’re a really nice girl, and I like you. But you need to leave me alone.” I’m doing better. I don’t need to rake this up again. “Wimbledon’s coming up. I need to focus on my tennis.”

“That’s what Novak said. And Novak’s miserable.”

“Novak made it to the final,” Andy says. “And Novak has you, and the baby. I’m sure he’s fine.”

Jelena’s eyes are uncannily searching. She reminds him of his mum, in a way, and that makes him uneasy. “The final isn’t winning. And he says your name in his sleep.”

“Jesus,” Andy says. “I don’t want to know that.”

He doesn’t. They’ve broken up. However stupid it is, it’s happened. Picking at the wound is just going to leave a scar.

“I don’t care if you don’t want to know that,” Jelena says, her English precise. “Fix this.”

I’m not the one who broke it. “I can’t.”

She shakes her head. “You made him happy. Now he’s miserable. Fix this.”

“I think,” Andy says, “that you don’t know who dumped who.”

He’s got to get over this. It’s been five months. 

“Becker dumped you,” she says, raising an impeccable eyebrow. “And Novak is stupid, because he is young, and confused, and he wants to win so much. But Becker dumped you. You are fine with being dumped by an old German man?”

He laughs, but there’s no humour in it.

Jelena reaches out a hand and rests it on his wrist, lightly. “Fix this, Andy.”

~

Andy thinks about talking to Amélie. She’s new, but she’s a good listener; she’s nothing like Lendl, not at all, but the calmness is similar. He thinks she’d consider the situation with fairness, and maybe even empathy.

But in the end, she’s just too new. She doesn’t know the history. And she’s a tennis coach, not a life counselor. She’d be entirely entitled to tell him to get his shit together, and then have him run forehand drills.

Andy runs forehand drills, and in the back of his mind Jelena’s voice still echoes, _Fix this_.

~

It’s a dreary morning in Wimbledon. Andy’s glad that it’s his off day, and he doesn’t have to spend the morning worrying about whether he’ll get on court, or if he’ll have fourteen rain delays during his match. He practices on the indoor courts, and then goes for a run through Wimbledon Village, the rain on his skin cooling him down.

He heard from the grapevine that Novak’s switched houses this year. For five years, he’d always rented the same house; Andy knows it well, from all the lazy hours spent in the garden. He knows the kitchen, where he’s cooked for Novak, feeding him pasta sauce off the end of the spoon – the dining room, where they played cards at the table and Novak taught him strange card games and unabashedly made up house rules – the living room, where there was always some Serbian napping on the sofa to be doused in cold water. 

(He knows the bedroom, the big soft bed large enough for them both to sleep in without fear of rolling over and injuring the other. He knows the big bay window, letting in the sunlight in the mornings, doing little to keep out the persistent birdsong. He knows the shower in the master bath, excellent water pressure and big enough for two.)

This year, Novak’s switched houses, and Andy goes home to Surrey every night.

He wonders why Novak’s switched houses. He thinks he can guess.

And somehow, it’s that which makes him stop in the middle of Wimbledon village and pull out his phone, abruptly furious and determined, all at once. It’s been six months, six long months, and six months is long enough. “Do you still want me to fix it? Tell me the address.”

~

“Ko je to bio?” Novak asks, without looking up from his book.

Jelena had opened the door, then silently showed him upstairs. There had been nothing to say, not really.

Andy doesn’t say anything now. He just stands in the doorway and looks at Novak. The reading glasses, which Andy’s always loved. The way he sits, knee drawn up in that awkward pose that is so quintessentially him somehow. The light on his hair, on his face. He’s lost weight, though Andy doesn’t know if anyone else would notice, anyone who doesn’t know every freckle on his body.

When he doesn’t get an answer, Novak looks up.

“Breaking up with me was bullshit,” Andy says.

Novak wets his lips with his tongue, little unconscious gesture. “It’s Wimbledon. You shouldn’t… stress is bad. You have a title to defend.”

“Fuck Wimbledon,” Andy says, succinctly, and takes a step into the room. “Breaking up with me was bullshit. I don’t accept it.”

“You don’t accept it,” Novak repeats, and pushes his glasses up on his nose with a slightly shaking finger.

He’s a tennis player. His fighting spirit is one of the most important things about him. And if he can fight on court, he can fight for this. _Has_ to fight for this. 

“No,” he says, and crosses the room, sinking to his knees next to Novak’s chair. “I don’t.”

“Do I get a say in this?” Novak asks, swallowing.

Andy takes the book away from him, setting it on the floor, then reaches up and carefully removes Novak’s glasses. “You get a say,” he says, hearing the roughness in his voice. “Boris Becker doesn’t. I’m not taking orders from a stupid German idiot.”

“What about from a stupid Serbian idiot?” Novak asks, meeting his eyes, and Andy’s stomach leaps with sudden joy.

“That’s different,” he says, gruffly. “I’m in love with a stupid Serbian idiot.”

Novak laughs, a little breaking sound, and then his head is dropping onto Andy’s shoulder.

Andy closes his eyes, hand coming up to cradle the back of Novak’s head. “This house sucks,” he says, into Novak’s hair.

“I’ll get the old one next year,” Novak says.

“You’d better,” Andy says, and holds him close.

~

Andy knows better than to think that it’ll all be as simple as the first reconciliation. They’ve both been hurting for six months, and the repercussions of that are still to be fully seen. (For instance, his irrational desire to punch Becker whenever he sees him.) 

But the simplicity of the reconciliation was so much easier than he’d ever expected, and that tells him just how much Novak missed him, that his pride was completely worn down by the time Andy took the first step into that room. Perhaps he’s been punished enough. It wasn’t cruelty that led to the breakup in the first place, and if Andy’s been hurting from it, how much more must it have hurt Novak, who knew he was responsible?

Andy can’t forget those six months, just as he can’t forget the pain his back has caused him over the years, or the torture of all those defeats in Slam finals. But defeats make victories sweeter, and pain makes joy even more precious, and life is too short to do anything but look forward.

“Come to bed,” Novak says, resting his chin on Andy’s shoulder. “It’s too cold out here.”

“Big match tomorrow,” Andy says, not sure if he means it as a question or not.

Novak shrugs, the movement feeling funny against Andy’s back. “I have you, and Jelena, and the baby. Of course I want to win. But tennis isn’t the only thing that matters.”

“You want to call Becker and tell him to suck it, or shall I?”

“Come to bed,” Novak says, laughing.

They still have things to talk about, wounds to heal. But as Andy follows Novak back inside, hand-in-hand, he thinks they’re going to be okay. 

~


End file.
